The Eric Metaxas Show - #126 - Dr. Larry Arnn

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

⭐ FREE SLAVES with CSI: https://csi-usa.org/metaxas/Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn about the new documentary Revolutionary America, the fragile miracle of the American Revolution, and why Americans must recover the true story of the founding. They discuss Rededicate 250, the media’s reaction to Eric’s ballroom joke, the Declaration of Independence, Washington crossing the Delaware, Valley Forge, Lexington and Concord, John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, King George III, and why the Revolution was far more desperate and consequential than many Americans realize. Subscribe for clips from The Eric Metaxas Show to hear politics and culture from a Christian perspective.⭐ PRE-ORDER TODAY:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:⚖️ Legal Help Center - Get Free Legal Help Today: https://www.legalhelpcenter.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/💧 Sentry H2O: https://sentryh2o.com/

Hey there, folks. I don't know about you, and I don't care about you. I care about me. I'm excited. Please be excited with me. Because as you know, my book on the Revolution is coming out. And this is America's supercentennial, our 250th. It's a big, wonderful patriotic year. We should be celebrating. And my way of celebrating, apart from writing 600-page book on the American Revolution, is to have read. regular guests on this program to talk about the American Revolution. And today, I feel really privileged and thrilled to have, as my guest, the host of the American Revolution podcast. His name is Michael Troy. I've never met him before today. I heard his voice, but I don't know what he looks like. and I've been listening to the American Revolution podcast for many, many months,

like intensely because John Zmirak, who is on this program often, said to me, hey, have you checked out the American Revolution? You're right in this book. Have you checked out the American Revolution podcast? I said, no, no, I never listen to podcasts ever. I don't. I just don't. But he's like, yeah, you should check it out.

And he's telling me about it. And one day, finally, I figured out how to listen to the American Revolution. Revolution podcast, and I was kind of hooked. And I've been so blessed by the contents of it. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if the guy doing it were still alive and we could talk to him? Turns out he is alive. Turns out he's still doing the American Revolution podcast.

Turns out his name is Michael Troy, and he's my guest right now. Michael Troy, welcome to the program. Well, thanks for having me. listen um i do not know where to begin you're um in in in writing my book on the revolution i wanted my book in a sense to be encyclopedic to tell everything there is about the revolution but it turns out you cannot do that in a book you cannot do that in a single volume on the american revolution so i had to leave a lot out my book still like 600 pages long but when i discovered your podcast i realize this is what you have done. You, in your podcast, the American Revolution podcast,

you have it all in there. And it's almost unbelievable to me that you have done so much work. It's just such high, very high quality telling the stories. So I really just wanted to start by asking you, how in the world did you begin to do this? How did this start for you? What were you doing with your life before you start doing this podcast, I don't know, nine years ago or whatever. What is your, what is your story, Michael Troy? Well, I started the, well, even before I started the podcast, I've been obsessed with American history my entire life. I was a young child during the bicentennial.

I guess I got my kick beginnings then. So I've just always wanted to know more about American history. And about 10 years ago or more, maybe I think, really wanted to do a deep dive into the American Revolution. I knew a lot about it, but I wanted to know even more. And I decided, well, when I begin this journey of doing more research, wouldn't be fun to share it with other people. And starting a podcast seemed like a fun way to do that. And how wrong you were, Michael Troy. Okay, so what were you doing? Your 60 people would enjoy it at some point, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you might as well put something out.

there, right? You're doing all this work and then turns out that lots of other people love it. But let me ask you, what were you doing for your day job, you know, before you immersed yourself in doing this podcast? What was life like for Michael Troy before the American Revolution podcast? History has always been a hobby for me. I really wanted to study history in college and didn't because I figured out, I'll never make money at that. I worked as the CIO for a law firm for many years, just doing technology stuff. So completely unrelated to this. The ironic thing, though, is the law firm I worked for literally was across the street from Independence Hall. So I walked past it every single day on my way to and from work. Now, wait a minute. Across the street from

Independence Hall, you're not making that up. So are you a Philly guy? Did you grow up in Philly? I grew up near Philly. I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, which is, you know, less than an hour away. So, but yeah, I, you know, always came to Philly for my field trips and everything. And as I said, I worked in Philly for almost 30 years. Do you know where Caesar Rodney is buried? Where he's buried, no. Is it in... Neither do I.

I just thought, you know, you might, because you're from Delaware. He was from Delaware. Am I that mixed up now that I'm getting him mixed up with somebody else? He is. I just like to find his statue. They took away Caesar Rodney's statue for. Rodney Square in Wilmington during the COVID era when they were tearing down everybody's statues.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? They tore down Caesar Rodney's statue? Well, they didn't tear it down. The government put it away for safekeeping and it just hasn't come up. Yeah, same thing. Same thing. Yeah.

Same thing. Like, oh, no, no, no, no. You don't have to behead him. We'll do it for you. We'll do it for you. Well, gosh. So you grew up in, in, that neck of the woods. And then so you're a lawyer across from Independence Hall. So you're making a

living working for a law firm. And what was it that made you make this leap in, what was it, 2017 to start this podcast? Yeah. And it really just started as a hobby. I kept my day job and just did this on the side. I actually had been begun research in this, probably in 2015, and I was just reading and writing a lot of draft episodes, I guess, so that when I actually started publishing in 2017, and I had 100 episodes already done, or at least written, not recorded, but written. You're one of those methodical characters. I hate you. No, that is so...

I didn't trust myself to stick with it, so I figured, all right, if I can write this many, I'm clearly committed, I can actually put it out there. Well, that's part of what impresses me about what you've accomplished. Because I wasn't kidding when I said, you know, when I wanted to write, you know, I'm a popular populist writer. I'm not a scholar, but, you know, obviously like you, I want to, you know, keep my eye on the scholarly consensus and be scholarly, but I want to tell the stories. And I wanted in my book, as I said, to be sort of encyclopedic, you know, to tell everything. And then when you dive in, you realize, oh my gosh, it is infinite. It is absolutely infinite.

There's no way I can do that. On some level, that's what you've been doing with the podcast is that you touch on everything. And what also amazes me is how you don't, it's not just kind of like a rambling, you know, conversation like I'm having with you right now. It's very methodical. And so you write this out.

And it's a great, it's a great feat of scholarship and writing as a writer i want to say to you it's it's just an extraordinary uh thing that you do extraordinary accomplishment really extraordinary genuinely extraordinary accomplishment what you've done and you go in into such depth but you manage to keep it fun and light and i there are many times when i could just hear you your your tone of voice it becomes hard not to laugh and i wish i'd written some of those down but you're making certain observations, and there's a riness that creeps into your tone,

that you can't hide that. I mean, you must know what I'm talking about. At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect from tip to toe. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure,

it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.cair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Yeah, I mean, I try to tell it every episode to be its own interesting story

that something fun happens, something interesting happens, something important happens, whatever it is. But yeah, it's telling a story. I try to avoid the academic idea of, you know, everything has to lead to some broader thesis or some nonsense like that. These are interesting stories about real people and what they went through to create the greatest country in the world. The greatest country in the world. What kind of jingoistic, patriotic nonsense am I agreeing with? Yeah, well, it's kind of hard not to feel that it's the greatest country in the world when you do the research and when you when you just look at it, when you do the math, basically. But people need to know the details, which is why, you know, I'm excited about introducing them to your podcast.

There are so many things I want to ask you. One of the things was your opinion of Horatio Gates is my opinion of Horatio Gates. And it was very gratifying to hear you for folks who weren't tracking. You know, folks, Horatio Gates really believed he should have George Washington's job. So did Charles Lee. but but he was kind of gunning for Washington's job basically undermining Washington and it's always hard to when I was doing the research to to ask the question is it just me or was this really going on or whatever and you you clarified that from me so maybe you could say a few

words about Horatio Gates we're going to go to a break in in a half minute but just start talking about Horatio Gates, and when we come back, we'll keep going. Yeah, Horatio Gates had been a British regular officer before the war, and he'd retired and settled in Virginia. And I think what you see in a lot of British officers is they always try to badmouth their superiors in a very kind and respectful way. But basically, they're saying, I don't think my boss is really up to snuff. And if he gave me a shout at it, I'd do a much better job and he tried to do the same thing in the Continental Army when he was appointed a brigadier general. He sure did. He sure did. When we come back, folks, my guest is Michael Troy. He's the host of the American

Revolution podcast. It's an infinitely interesting and exciting subject. We'll be right back. Folks, before we go, I want to recommend to you in case you want to do something crazy and beautiful. We are doing another campaign with our friends at CSI. These folks are heroes. If you want to free a slave, literally, this is what CSI does. Every $250 sets one captive free and puts them into a life of freedom, sets them up. This is important. Help us do this.

Go to ericmetaxis.com. Click on the banner. Couldn't be easier. Please go to ericmetaxis. com. Click on the banner. very important. Welcome back talking to Michael Troy, who's the host of the American Revolution podcast, highly recommended folks. And so Michael, we were talking about Horatio Gates. And so you,

I was just listening to one of the episodes of your podcast recently where you said, because I've listened to it not in chronological order. I'm just kind of bouncing around. And you, but your opinion of Horatio Gates is not so great, and I have to say I'm with you on that. He, so he clearly wants Washington's job. And the way I react is, I love Washington so much, and I'm loyal to my friends.

So I just feel like anybody that is, you know, wanting the head of Washington, it's like, that's not my friend. But the more I do the research, and then as I've listened to you, I realize I'm not crazy. Gates was, I don't know. I don't see him as really an American hero. We have to remember, too, we are looking at George Washington in hindsight with all the great benefits that he did. If you look at him in 1775, I'm not sure I would have chosen him to be commander in chief.

He had no real military experience beyond regimental levels, and even that was pretty minimal, that he had managed to start the French and Indian War. So he had some real limitations. Now, obviously, he turned out to be an amazing man. I would consider him indispensable to the revolution. But nobody really knew how important he would be and that his great qualities would turn out when they appointed him in 1775.

Horatio Gates had been, as I said, he was a regular officer in the British Army, so he had lots of great experience. Charles Leak had even more. And they thought, we know how to run an army. This country bumpkin from Virginia really doesn't. And the reason Congress went with Washington over these more experienced men was primarily that, well, do we really want to appoint a British regular officer as commander in a war

with the British regular army? It just didn't quite make sense to them. So both men, Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, did a lot of things to try to undercut George Washington and point out that he, He just wasn't going to turn out to be up to snuff and up to this job. And that at some point, Congress would realize that and replace them with one of them. And Horatio, Charles Lee ended up becoming a prisoner of war early on, so he took up himself out of the running. But Horatio Gates very much was pushing for that.

And you see that as early as Washington's crossing when he famously crossed the Delaware and attacked Trenton. Horatio Gates was with Washington at the time. and Washington asked him to be a commander, one of the commanders in the force going. And Grisha Gaye said, no, I don't, I'm sick. I don't feel up to it. I'm going to go back to Philadelphia. Instead, he got on his horse and rode all the way down to Baltimore where Congress was meeting at the time to start badmouthing Washington, expecting Washington would be captured and that he would then be in a position to take command of the Continental Army.

And, of course, he gets worse. That's what so interesting. He was like banking, they were banking. He and Charles Lee were just, it's just. a matter time before the loser, Washington is shown to be the loser that we all know he is. And I'm just going to kind of hang around. And I don't want to get my hands dirty being involved with him. I don't want any association with him. So I'm also fascinated with the way Charles Lee is dragging his rear end as slowly as possible south through the jerseys, not wanting to

help Washington. And of course, infamously gets. captured in Basking Ridge in the tavern. But it's just a crazy thing to me. One of the things that I learned, which I was amazed by, I mean, besides what we've been discussing is their stories in the end, both of them, Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, get come up and says that you just feel like this is made up. This surely, you know, history isn't this. black and white, but both of them are effectively humiliated at the end of their lives and shown,

you know, to be somehow deficient, at least compared to Washington. Yeah, Charles Lee ends up being drummed out of the army after Monmouth. He comes back from being a prisoner of war. He's put in command at Monmouth and tries to retreat when Washington wants to move forward, and that's kind of the end of his career. Horatio Gates sticks it out to the very end, causing trouble for Washington all along after he, quote, wins Saratoga, which say, you know, he was basically put in command after Philip Schuyler and others had really set up the Army for victory there. He becomes the hero and tries to parlay that into taking over from Washington. We have the Conway Cabal, which involves Horatio Gates,

essentially trying to take over the Army from Washington. And then even at the very end of the war, Horatio Gates is up in New York, where the Americans are, the American Army is getting ready to retire. And Horatio Gates is the one who's leading the charge of we should go down and march on Congress and have the army take over the government. And Washington has to stop that. Yeah. Excuse me. We're going to another break. We'll be right back with Michael Troy. How much are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness worth to you? That is the question America's founders had to answer. You see, for more than 150 years, America's 13 colonies governed themselves until Britain declared that they had no right to self-rule. So ordinary people

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One more time. That's Hillsdale. EDU slash revolution. Welcome back talking to Michael Troy, host of the American Revolution podcast. So Michael, you're, you know, you're telling me what I've already heard you talk about

on your podcasts with regard to Charles Lee and Horatio Gates. But it's just a fascinating thing. And I think that's one of the fascinating things about the story of the American Revolution is that these are human beings. And so we want to say, you know, all these guys are heroes. But I really in the end,

have a good amount of scorn for Gates and Lee, particularly because of the way they treat in Washington or the way they handle things. And the story of Lee, I mean, maybe we should stick with the Battle of Camden. Can you say a little bit about the Battle of Camden for my audience? because I just found this so amazing.

Sure. Camden, South Carolina was a British outpost after the British had captured South Carolina in the Battle of Charleston. A huge American army, the largest army, captured during the war, was captured when the British took Charleston under General Benjamin Lincoln. And so Congress sends Horatio Gates to Hero of Saratoga. He's going to go down and become the hero of the Sutheran campaign. and Gates just kind of grabs the army and just runs pell-mell into battle at Camden, runs into Cornwallis's forces there. And he's a horrible battlefield commander.

He does not command from the front. He stands several miles back and kind of sends riders up with orders and the whole thing becomes a mess. The militia retreat, several prominent American officers, Continental officers, are murdered, killed in the battle because of the, incompetence. And Gates's first instinct is to jump on a horse and ride hundreds of miles in a few days so he can get back to Congress and explain his side of the story rather than worry about

the army he left in a field to be killed or captured. I mean, it's almost unbelievable. When I, you know, as I'm writing this, I'm forming my opinions of Horatio Gates and Charles Lee. And the evidence comes out more and more and more that, you know, these are not American heroes. And that story, it seems, you know, it's kind of like some of the story of Charles Lee. It seems almost unbelievable. I mean, that he presides over what many called

the worst loss in the entire war, the Battle of Kandon. I mean, it's just a rout, horrendous, horrifying. And as if that's not enough, he then blasts out of there like some cartoon figure, like at a speed that he you know and i was actually trying to make sense of it you know reading different accounts and thinking am i missing something how is it that that horatio gates blasts out of there at this speed what what was he thinking and i have never really been able to come up with what is his excuse for for fleeing uh this the battle for leaving his army behind and he's mocked

by Alexander Hamilton and others who were around Washington, who I guess in a sense, when they hear this news, they're like, could have told you, like, that's Horatio Gates. But it almost seems like it was a touch of madness or something like that, that he would. I think it was more spin. I think he wanted to get back to Congress and give his spin on what happened

before they heard about it from someone else. That is interesting. So this is not the first time that Michael, Troy has given me sort of the answer that I'm searching. I didn't know if it existed. But yeah, so he, boy, he blasts out of there. And it takes three days later, he's about 170 miles away. And he writes Congress.

He finally sits down to let Congress know what he thinks they should know. But it's embarrassing. It makes me on some level feel sorry for him. Yeah, to be fair to Gates, he was actually a competent logistical officer. And if he had done that rather than become a battlefield commander, he probably would have had a good career. I think he got a little ahead of him what his levels of competency were. But yeah, the biggest problem was he was committed to advancing his own career more so than committed to winning the war on behalf of the American people. Rees knows a thing or two about great combinations.

Chocolate and peanut butter, obviously. But there's more than one way to Rees's. From indulgent Reese's big cups with caramel to crunchy Reese's pieces and Reese's miniatures, there's a delicious Reese's for every mood. It's the same combo you love, just with more ways to enjoy it. So whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating yourself, nothing else is Reese's. Yeah, that's not good, Michael. Nope.

That's not a good thing. And I guess that... The most thing, of course, is that if you're not committed to advancing your own career, you tend to do better, people like Hamilton or Washington himself, you know, that were more focused on winning the war and not advancing their own interests, ended up being the American heroes that we revered today. Well, there's a big life lesson in that, isn't there? I mean, it's the warp and woof of what we call reality, that if you're trying to promote yourself, you probably won't do well. If you're actually caring about something larger than yourself, turns out you, you. may well get promoted. I'm talking to Michael Troy. I highly recommend his American Revolution podcast.

We'll be right back. Folks, do not forget. If you have questions about gold or silver, we recommend, highly recommend, Genesis Gold. They'll answer your questions. We trust them. We believe in them. And you can find them at metaxis gold IRA.com.

Metaxusgoldira.com. Welcome back. I'm talking to Michael Troy. He's the host of the American Revolution podcast, which is just a gift to history lovers, lovers of America. How many episodes, Michael, do you have of the American Revolution podcast by now? In terms of regular episodes, I think we're coming up on 400, if you include all the special interview episodes. and I've been releasing 250th episodes, basically what happened 250 years ago this week, were well over 500. Yeah, that's just a lot.

And you, there, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, when you were talking about Thomas Payne, obviously the great writer of common sense, and the American crisis. You say something in your episode about Thomas Payne that I hadn't heard anywhere else. He is over and over and over again described as the son of a corset maker

or somebody who makes stays for corsets. And so people can picture whalebone stay in a corset which are fashionable those days. And that's repeated over and over and over again. you say that in fact, no, he was the maker of stays that were used in naval vessels or in ships, stays to, you know, to stay the mast or whatever. Did you, is that the case? Because I got confused.

You were the only one. I went with your version just because I decided that I trusted you and your research. But I'm always amazed by things like this, how they kind of get out there and they go on and on and on and maybe it's not true. So when we're talking about stays in the case of Thomas Payne, did you ever figure that out for sure? I wouldn't be willing to say 100%. I did read that. And it made sense to me. He's only referred to as a staymaker. And the common reference to stays in the 18th century as opposed to the 19th century was the reference to shipbuilding. So I think that that was the case. Well, bone,

corsets were not a big thing in the 1760s, which is what we'll talk about when he was growing up. Well, that's, I mean, it's so interesting to me that, you know, in writing my book, in writing all of my books, I always want to get the facts right. And I'm sometimes fascinated by how something gets out there, and it's just repeated and repeated and repeated. And you go, hey, wait a.

minute, that's either not true or at least we should say we don't know. And so yours is the first example of saying, I think that it wasn't the stays for corsets. I think it was the stays for sailing vessels. So I put that in my book. And if it's wrong, ladies and gentlemen, you can blame Michael Troy, my guess. And I have read that in a couple of other sort. And it's not just an idea I came up with. I did read that from other people who researched the matter. So it is it is the minority view, but I think it's the right one. Yeah, no, no, I'm teasing you. I think you're right. And I was just, but I just thought this is such an, it's one of those interesting things because I've written other historical books, one on Martin Luther, the great reformation figure.

And there are things that get out there that get repeated over and over and over and over. And when I did my research, I thought, wait a minute, no, no, no. That's just wrong and that's just lazy. People are just repeating something. So kudos to you, you know, for the work that you do. I can't really imagine how much research, a lifetime of research that goes into what you're doing. I wanted to go back to Charles Lee. I was, we were saying earlier that, you know, these are the two figures that were in many ways more qualified than Washington and pretty much.

bitter that they didn't have his job and assuming that eventually Congress would come, you know, to see that they were the guy. And a book came out, I don't know if it was a year ago or two years ago, which pretty plausibly makes the case. I had already had it had a gut sense that Charles Lee flat out committed treason during his time in British captivity. I don't know if you can talk a little bit about the story of Charles Lee. Yeah, I discussed that a bit in my podcast, too. Charles Lee was captured shortly after the American retreat from New York in 1776. He became a prisoner of war, and the people who captured him were pretty much

implying that he was going to be charged with treason because he was a British officer who had gone to war against Britain. Lee knew a great many of the British officers who were his captors, and he tried to ingratiate himself with them by giving them a lot of information and even suggesting a plan of attack against the Americans so that they could end this war quickly. And it seemed like he was making an effort to ingratiate himself to avoid charges of treason and wiggle out of his situation. This information never became publicly known

until decades after the war had ended. If it had, the Americans probably would have considered him a traitor and would have hanged him if they got their hands on him. Well, yeah, the information came out. I think there were some documents in the New York Historical Society that were discovered in the middle of the 19th century. And they thought, holy cow, what do we have here? This is Horatio Gator.

sorry, this is Charles Lee's handwriting. And it's a document from when he was in British captivity, his laying out how he thought the British could defeat Washington and the American. So it's a scandalous thing. But up until fairly recently, there were still a number of scholars who were open to the idea that he, or at least suggesting that he probably was trying to mislead the British. but I think in the most recent book, and forgive me for not remembering the name of the book or the author, but it's in my own bibliography. But that, in fact, no, that's not the case. There's other evidence that Charles Lee genuinely had gone over to the British side and was committing treason long before Benedict Arnold would get the chance.

Yeah, well, he didn't go whole hog and say he wanted to rejoin the British Army or anything. I think he was just trying to ingratiate himself would wiggle out. The papers you're talking about remained in General Howe's personal papers after he died. General Howe, of course, was the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America at the time. Wow, I didn't not know that. Amazing. I guess that's why I have you on here, because you know this stuff. But it's so fascinating, and it just underscores what I was saying earlier, how the landscape is infinite. I mean, it's kind of fascinating to me that, you know, whatever direction you want to go.

and it just gets deeper and deeper. And, but Charles Lee, he's a very curious figure, a strange figure in a way. I'm trying to think who it was. Some historian not so long ago said that Charles Lee had a sex life of the transient variety or something like that, which I guess is a very oblique way of saying he visited prostitutes. In my research on when he was captured in Basking Ridge, it seems very plausible that he was in search of female companionship at this tavern. It wouldn't surprise me. That was common among most British officers, which he had been one until very recently.

He was kind of an ugly guy. He had a character that he did not get along well with people. He tended to be very heavily critical of people and always attacking them. And I think he was more friends with the pack of dogs that followed him around everywhere than he was without the human beings. So, yeah, he was kind of an odd duck. Yeah. Kind of an odd duck. He had experience as a general in Europe.

He wasn't actually commissioned as a general in the British Army, but he had served and done work as a general in European wars before the war. So he was a well-experienced officer. I find it, again, there are things that, a number of things that in my research I thought, you cannot make this up. The fact that he is dragging his feet, you know, as Washington is begging him in letters, very deferentially, begging him, asking him, never commanding him, but strongly suggesting as commander and chief, hey, we need your help. Can you come, can you, can you please come south?

Can you please? And he just drags and drags and drags. And it seems like he's waiting for Washington just to be defeated and to go away. And he doesn't want any part of it. But the fact that he is in this tavern sitting there at 10 a.m. In his dressing gown, writing a note to Horatio Gates, bitterly criticizing Washington

and that while he is in the process of writing this letter, he's captured. I mean, it's like, if you put that in a movie, people would be like, well, that's kind of, you know, that couldn't really happen, but I guess it did. Yeah, just for your listeners, this was right after the British had chased the Americans out of New York.

Charles Lee had taken army up to the north into upstate New York while George Washington was retreating across New Jersey toward Philadelphia. Washington absolutely needed Lee to come down with the reinforcement so they could put up a defense. Lee very clearly seemed to be thinking Washington's got himself into a mess. He's going to get captured at some point. When he gets captured, I get to become the commander of the Army.

In fact, it worked out the other way around. He got captured and Washington got away. We'll be right back talking to Michael Troy, the American Revolution podcast. Folks, this is important. If Medicare has you confused, if you've got questions, we understand, and this is why we recommend our friends at Chapter. They're there to help you to kind of talk you through what might work best for you. This is very important that you get it right. You can call them at 571-421-1253.

These are our friends at Chapter 571-4-21-12-5-3. Welcome back. I'm talking to Michael Troy. He's the host of the American Revolution podcast, highly recommended. Michael, you have to be excited that this is, you know, you mentioned being a kid as I was during the bicentennial. And it is exciting that this is the 250th. I have been calling it the supercentennial. And in a freakish moment with President Trump, I mentioned it to him. And he's, decided to announce, yes, we should call it the supercentennial. And I don't know if anything's been done about that, but he really earnestly was talking to his staff saying, we got to make this change called the supercentennial. But part of the reason I think is to be called the supercentennial is like it's such a happy moment to be celebrating our 250th that we need to be able to say

this is our supercentennial year as opposed to semi-Quincennial, which is not as exciting. But That's my long way of asking, do you have any special plans for the 250th or where are you going to be on July 4th this year? Yeah, I've always called the Cester Centennial, which I thought was the name that was supposed to be given to it. But I'm pretty much the only person in the world who does that. I plan to be in Philadelphia on July 4th. So celebrating with everybody else. Well, yeah, what is going to be happening in Philadelphia on July 4th? I can't imagine.

I mean, I can imagine lots of stuff, but what's happening at Independence Hall? My goodness. Yeah, I don't even know yet. They've been very, the organization for a lot of this stuff just seems to be a bit, you know, people don't really make it a priority

and they're kind of just thinking something will happen. So I'm kind of waiting to see with everyone else. Interesting. Well, I'm not sure. where we're going to be, but it is, it's a big deal. And I think part of what makes me happy about it is that it just forces everybody to think about American history. And I've, I've always felt that, you know, we should be celebrating American history.

And in recent decades, I don't get the impression that the culture is nearly as aware of our history as we would have been. I mean, I keep saying if you went around, you know, with a microphone on Main Street America in 1960 and asked people, you know, do you know who, you know, the Sons of Liberty were? Have you heard of James Otis Jr.? And there were films about this. I mean, there was, Disney was talking about this. Everybody knew all of these figures. But it seems like that's become less and less the case. So this year seems to me a great opportunity to get people interested in our history. Yeah, I agree. And I hope people will take the opportunity to learn a lot more about it because it is our founding story. And I think one of the gifts that the founders gave us was the fact that we can take for granted a lot of, or we do take for granted a lot of things like having a democratic government and we're not ruled by, you know, a king that we built a republic. And that was something that was unheard of in 1776. And the fact that we were able to do that and spread that to much of the world means that many people today just take for granted that.

we will have a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people. And that was just not the case back then. Well, I mean, you're singing my song or I'm singing your song because I really think that that's, I wrote a book about 10 years ago called If You Can Keep It, where I really was thinking, we have ceased to appreciate the wildness of this idea that we had in 1776, that we might create a country where the people rule themselves, I mean, it's just something that we kind of yawn at today, and we should not, because it is, of course, very fragile. It can go away very quickly, and we need to understand it.

You said before that you'd always been interested in American history. Was there something that happened as a kid, or was it just, what was it? I think the bicentennial really sparked my interest in the revolution, just because it was a time when, you know, all the schools were focused on teaching it. And every, you know, it was in the news, it was on TV. I grew up, as I said, at Delaware, I went to school. I could literally see the Brandywine Creek from the window of my school. So I was kind of steeped in it from the very beginning and just it was all around me and I just wanted to learn more about it. You could see the Brandywine Creek.

That's pretty cool. Not a lot of kids in school can say that. Really, that's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. Do you have favorite authors on The Revolution? There's a lot of good ones out there. One of the ones that I really enjoyed early on was Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill. But, yeah.

Actually, we're going to go to another break. I'm going to be interviewing Nathaniel Philbrick in a few weeks. Folks, we'll be right back talking to Michael Troy, American Revolution Podcast. Some of you know that we are right now doing a campaign to free slaves literally. This is a big deal. I see it as a great opportunity for people who believe in truth and justice to be able to act on those values. And Todd, we're just always grateful when you can come on and give us a little more explanation of what it is we're talking about. These women, they've been enslaved in Sudan since the 1990s.

and CSI, in partnership with Eric Metaxus, thanks to your generosity, has been able to free literally tens of thousands of those individuals and bring them back into a new life of freedom. So we're so excited to be here and invite you to help us free even more slaves this month. I guess the way I see it, Todd, is this is faith in action. Again, the easy way to do it is go to Ericmetaxis.com. The banner comes up. All the details are there. I beg you, folks, please participate and thank you.

Welcome back, folks. I'm talking to Michael Troy, Michael J. Troy, who's the host of the American Revolution podcasts. And Michael, you were just saying on the break that you just want to encourage people as part of what you do to learn about American history. Yeah, I mean, really learn the basic story. One of the problems, I guess with Acadini is, you know, they learned the basic story years ago and they go on to more obscure and less important things. And I think reiterating the original story, the reason why this thing is so important at its core is something that we, every generation needs to relearn. And this is a great time to do that, especially with the 250th. Well, I mean, it is funny you say that because we haven't talked before today. And that's exactly why I wrote my book because I thought, you know, I'm not an academic. And academics tend to focus to home in on one thing or some angle of some. something. And it's almost like they feel like it's beneath them to kind of to tell the whole

story because, oh, everybody knows the whole story. But everybody doesn't know the whole story, which is why I felt I wanted to write my book and why I'm thrilled to introduce folks to the American Revolution podcast. Because these are great stories, interesting stories. And when you know the stories, you can't really be lied to. You know, we're all kind of responsible for this information as Americans. And that's one of the things that you do so well is that you tell stories. And some of them are very funny. They're interesting.

I was actually most fascinated by what John Adams calls the revolution before the revolution. All the stuff that leads up to Lexington and Concord. It doesn't just suddenly happen. And how in many ways it really wasn't about the money. It was about these principles and how you have these. amazing men, mostly in Boston, who, I mean, if it weren't for Samuel Adams, James Otis Jr., John Adams, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, oh my goodness, Joseph Warren, there would have definitely been no revolution. And so we need to know who these heroes are. Yeah, and it's just not the leaders who we

remember. I mean, the entire people of New England. I think Britain's biggest mistake in this whole thing was assuming that the New England colonists were just like Englishmen in England, and they had spent sentropies developing their own idea of political discourse and freedom and self-government through their town meetings and things like that. And they had gotten comfortable with the idea that they would not be ruled by somebody far away who really didn't have their interests at heart. And they were willing to pick up guns and fight against that. And that's something I think the British never appreciated, especially at the beginning. They thought, oh, these are a few bad apples who are leading the people astray and we go in and go a show of

force and end this whole thing. And it was no. Every single person was committed to these ideas and willing to fight for them. I kept noticing how Washington especially really did believe that Providence capital P was with us in the war, that there were so many strange things that could have broken another way. Did you get a sense of that? Or what is your sense of that? Because it felt to me unavoidable, the conclusion. I mean, there are certain moments where you just have to shake your head and say, this just can't be a coincidence. Like when the American Army was retreating across the East River and, you know, this fog bank just rolled in at the last minute and hid them hid their retreat, otherwise they would have been captured and slaughtered. And other

incidents like that, you know, the freak snowstorm that happened when Washington was attacking Trenton. Yeah, there are moments where you just think, this is, this is so crazy that if it appeared in a fictional movie, I wouldn't buy it. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is fascinating in a way because you see over and over that they could have lost, but they didn't. there's so much more I want to talk with you about, but I just, I really want to underscore to my audience how grateful I am for your podcast. And how, I just don't think there's anything like it.

And you're very humble, but I think, you know, you must have some sense of what it is that you've accomplished. This is like a pyramid of, it just is, it's huge. And how many words do you think over time? I mean, each episode is how many words roughly? About 3,000. All right. 3,000 times 500-ish.

It's a lot. It's a lot. It's just a great accomplishment, Michael. We're out of time. But I'm just really excited to have met you. I look forward, hopefully, to meeting you in person at some point, since you know not so far away, but folks, you've got to check out MREVpodcast.com, Amrevepodcast.com. Highly recommended. Michael Troy, thank you. Thanks for having me.